domo@riddle.UUCP (Dominic Dunlop) (07/13/88)
[Cross-posting to comp.arc as it seems relevant; followup to comp.sys.mac.] In article <370STORKEL@RICE> STORKEL@RICE.BITNET (Scott Storkel) writes: >And other companies are supporting [Sun's] SPARC, too. Last I heard, the >88000 was still a pipe dream. So why not the MacSPARC? A good business reason is that Sun has got to be a major competitor for Apple from 1989 onwards, and it's not seen as a smart commercial idea to make oneself reliant on a technology perceived as being controlled by a competitor -- even where that competitor has an avowed policy of ``throwing technology over the wall'' in the hope that the resulting growth in the market for standard products will far offset any consequent reduction in the developer's market share. Look how long it took for other hardware suppliers to feel really good about promoting Sun's NFS as their main vehicle for transparent Local-Area file-sharing. Me, I'd love to see MacSPARC, as it would add more momentum to the bandwagon that's promoting SPARC as a standard UN*X hardware architecture. If that bandwaggon doesn't roll, we'll have another five years of having to accommodate multiple architectures for no good reason, and, boy, am I tired of doing that after the last ten years. But I fear it won't happen. Apple's got to come out with a RISC machine to stay in the MIPS race with, among others, Sun. Relying entirely on guesswork, I'd currently put the shortest odds on a Motorola solution. Thoughts, anyone? (See other postings for discussion of whether the 88000 is real or not.) -- Dominic Dunlop domo@sphinx.co.uk domo@riddle.uucp